Dogs prefer to receive compliments from human

According to the new research, dogs will choose the commendation from a human over food treatments.
It is the well-known fact that dog can make the tight connection with its owner. These animals can understand humans and even take care of them. And now, when scientists discovered that dogs will prefer to receive the praise from their owner instead of more food, the connection between us and them are getting even tighter.
During their research, scientists from the Atlanta’s Emory University carefully observed the natural behavior of 15 dogs.
According to the leading researcher Gregory Berns, the neuroscientist, their main goal was to understand the basis for human-dog friendship. They checked two theories, the one where the food treatment was main and kind relations, as the other.
They wanted to see what dogs really interested in.
He and his team asked Atlanta owners of dogs to take part in this study. He chose from them, dogs that could sit calmly during at least half of an hour. So there were retrievers and other not so energetic canines.
During the test, researchers scanned dogs’ brains to explore their behavior.
In the experiment, scientists showed images of toy horse, the toy car and hairbrush to the dogs. After the first image they did not receive anything, but after the toy car they received compliments, and after the third food. And all 13 dogs showed more pleasure from being praised by human, even more than by food.
Scientists made more tests and they all confirmed this result.